Geoengineering proposals are usually divided into two categories. The first category, solar radiation management, or SRM, is a variety of techniques that decrease the absorption of incoming solar short-wave radiation. This is possible by either increasing the reflectivity of the Earth, an approach called albedo enhancement, or by diverting the incoming solar radiation. The most prominent techniques proposed so far are stratospheric aerosol injections, cloud-albedo enhancement, space-based sunshields, and increasing of the reflectivity of the environment. The second category, carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, aims to reduce the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases by removing them from the atmosphere. The most-discussed methods so far are improvements in land use and afforestation—the process of creating or rebuilding forests—as well as carbon capture from ambient air and ocean fertilization. Some of these methods, for instance reforestation, are already in use although not currently seen as geoengineering. The American Meteorological Society recently added a third category of geoengineering proposals, which includes vertical ocean pipes that increase downward heat transport.

Geoengineering shares with standard climate policies the aim to diminish the risks of climate change. Whereas adaptation activities increase our capacity to cope with the effects of climate change and mitigation measures reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, geoengineering differs from them as it is a deliberate attempt to exercise control over atmospheric phenomena. Geoengineering techniques do not detract all of the serious consequences from increasing GHG emissions and therefore cannot moderate climate change alone without proper mitigation and adaptation strategies. As well, the climate modification proposals do not approach the root of the problem: the ever-growing greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, solar radiation management methods would allow ocean acidification to continue unchecked, and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations would not diminish any way.

Geoengineering proposals can be loosely grouped into “soft” and “hard” proposals, both of which fall into solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal categories. While soft proposals might have less long-term effects, their implementation could be terminated more easily and the uncertainties are minor in comparison with hard proposals. Soft proposals include, for instance, land use management, afforestation, and albedo enhancement by painting some parts of urban areas white. The hard proposals involve termination problems, environmental, legal, and ethical issues, and a vast array of uncertainties and risks with regard to implementation, control, side-effects, and research. Hard proposals include albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulphur injections, space-based mirrors, and large-scale ocean fertilization. A report from the United Kingdom’s Royal Society, Geoengineering the Climate, which was released in September 2009, elicits a whole range of open questions with regard to the subject. For instance, a hard radiation management proposal, stratospheric sulphur injection, would have adverse effects on stratospheric ozone and would have a negative impact on the biological productivity, including food production. In this case, the cure could be at least as bad as the disease.

These are just some of the reasons for being cautious about geoengineering, even in the early phases of research and development. Another point of concern is the risk that the public might have unrealistic expectations about the plan B and consider it an easy technological fix to control climate change. Furthermore, its attractiveness increases the perception that, if there is a technological fix, then there is no need to transform carbon-intensive lifestyles in the affluent countries and elsewhere. Geoengineering can also obtain some support from those who believe that mitigation strategies have largely failed although investments in clean energy production might turn out to be fruitful in the long run.

However, most opinions on geoengineering proposals present mitigation and geoengineering proposals combined. One proposed compromise is to bring together mitigation and geoengineering undertakings in order to buy time with stratospheric sulphur injections.[2] On top of this we must consider the governance of geoengineering implementations since for the time being, there is neither an authority with appropriate global oversight, nor have the fairness issues been thoroughly scrutinized. If these projects actually made the planetary thermostat adjustable, major disagreements could arise. Even if some of the proposals could be implemented unilaterally the effects exceed national borders and require fair international agreements on the common means and targets of geoengineering.

It is inevitable that this plan B would give a rise to numerous controversies that are extremely difficult to solve. Further relevant questions include the reversibility of the methods, compensation, and fairness in the face of environmental, legal, political, ethical, social, economic, and technological consequences. Finally, we must consider national security concerns under geoengineering implementations, and especially the potential for global conflicts without proper international agreements on the appropriate use of geoengineering methods.

The general tone of Royal Society’s report is cautiously positive. Although it recognizes a number of uncertainties, it does not see them entirely as obstacles to carrying out various experiments or conducting a research program. All the geoengineering alternatives we have at hand are risky, particularly the hard proposals. The problem with the soft proposals, more than being unsafe, is that they are insufficient for working our way out of the climate change problem. Our understanding about the climatic system is far from complete, which restrains our ability to predict the outcomes. Even though it is possible to detect signals of climate change the question of planetary control is wholly separate—reading the signs is distinct from dominating them.

Professor Andrew Feenberg, a philosopher of technology, raised this point in his keynote speech at the conference of Society for Philosophy and Technology in July 2009 in the University of Twente, the Netherlands, when he was asked about the feasibility of geoengineering.[3] He replied that although it might be possible to implement some of the proposals and have the desired effects for a while, the side effects are unpredictable because of the incomplete understanding about the climatic system. It would be the height of human hubris to imagine that the immensely complicated systems we don’t fully understand would obey our will. Feenberg’s comment suggests that the bigger the intervention into nature, the more we should worry about our own ignorance. Even if we could buy some time with hard proposals, the side effects could turn out to be even more detrimental than the outcome of runaway climate change. Therefore, the idea of a plan B focused on planetary control through geoengineering might turn out to be nothing but a mistaken notion.

Sanna Joronen, Master of Social Sciences, is a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Turku, Finland. Her thesis focuses on the ethical implications of geoengineering. Dr. Markku Oksanen is currently an academy research fellow, based at the University of Turku. He is also a university lecturer in philosophy at the University of Kuopio, Finland.

Notes

[1] Keith, David. Annual  Review of Energy and the Environment 25(2000): 245-84.

[2] Wigley, Tom. “A Combined Mitigation/Geoengineering Approach to Climate Stabilization.” Science 314(2006): 452-454.

[3] Feenberg, Andrew. “Ten Paradoxes of Technology and the Transhuman Illusion.” Keynote speech at the conference of Society for Philosophy and Technology 9 July, 2009, The University of Twente, the Netherlands.

The young Bernard could little have imagined that his early experiments in cloud seeding were laying the groundwork for a far more ambitious project to affect not just the weather, but to radically reshape the earth’s climate. Earlier this summer scientists and policymakers gathered at a National Academy of Sciences meeting to discuss a suite of options and technical solutions to the climate problem. One of those options was ocean fertilization, a geoengineering technology aimed at grabbing the climate reins from their feckless trajectory and steering atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations back down to historical levels.

There are many compelling scientific arguments both for and against geoengineering via ocean fertilization, which is probably why it was discussed in earnest at the National Academy of Sciences. But even if our best science indicates that ocean fertilization will succeed, there are clear ethical reasons to rule it out, as it can never meet with the scrutiny that most of us take to be emblematic of justified, right action.

The proposal, first advanced in the 1980s by Woods Hole oceanographer John Martin, is to dump several tankers of iron filings into the sea in order to manufacture a mid-ocean algae bloom. Researchers project that such an algae bloom might then suck carbon out of the atmosphere, much like a ShamWow^® sucks soda from the moldy underbelly of your basement carpet. All of this sounds mighty enticing when you consider the unpleasant climatological upheaval that is slowly unfolding and that will fundamentally change the world in which our children live. On the other hand, given the complexity of ocean ecosystems and humanity’s reasonably embarrassing failure rate with ambitious engineering projects—the Panama Canal mosquito eradication project, the Everglades restoration project, the Project Stormfury attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by seeding them with silver iodide, to name just a few such failures—there’s plenty of reason to worry that tinkering with nature in this way may be ill-advised.

Rainmakers like Vonnegut were mere redistributive Robin Hoods, stealing rain from the rich and giving it to the poor. But the latter-day heirs to such research propose no simple redistributive deckchair shuffling. They aim to fix one mess not by straightforwardly cleaning it up, but by introducing another mess. In doing so, they threaten either to sink or to save our ship. Fertilizing the oceans runs a real risk that the citizens of this planet could fall victim to the same fate that eventually nailed the old lady who swallowed a fly: we could get caught up in an endless chain of curatives, repairing one problem only to introduce another. But that’s only if we blow it. If we get the science right, we could break the chain. We might have at our fingertips a relatively cheap way of reversing the atmospheric concentrations of carbon that the past hundred years of industrialized recklessness have left hanging over our heads.

Enticing though this gamble may be, focusing strictly on risk to the oceans and the planet is shortsighted. In a recent paper that I co-authored with my colleague Lisa Dilling, we pointed out that most of the arguments against ocean fertilization only paint half the picture: by focusing so strongly on risk, they underemphasize the extent to which rights and respect are in play. Their shortcomings stem from their openness to the possibility that getting the science right means that the technology is a “go.”

Sure, risk is a major concern with these technologies. We should all be worried about the implications of our actions, about the risks of destroying, or at least dramatically altering, the oceans and the climate. If ocean fertilization will create a scenario in which the oceans become uninhabitable to most fish and wildlife, this is clearly an unacceptable outcome and we ought not to proceed. But the science is unclear on this outcome, and there is strong evidence to suggest that we can fertilize the oceans without making a mess of things.

We argued instead that even if ocean fertilization were to yield a far more palatable outcome—say, perhaps, by producing enough algae to generate a banner fish harvest, thereby not only reversing climate change, but also feeding the world’s hungry—there are still strong ethical reasons not to use it as a method for reducing greenhouse gas pollution.

Consider, for starters, how slippery the term “pollution” is. It depends on your perspective whether it should be considered pollution at all. To most farmers, for instance, increased organic compounds are a gift from the gods, dramatically improving crop growth and foliage. Too many of these compounds however, and uh-oh, the crops die. In one case they’re essential; in the other, they’re a pollutant. The reason for this terminological slipperiness is that pollution is typically framed in terms of harms and benefits, making its categorization entirely contingent upon whether the affected party will be made better or worse off. Carbon dioxide is the same way: essential to plant life, but when enormous concentrations of it invade the atmosphere, it has the undesired effects that we are witnessing now.

Problem is, we don’t really know how welcome these harms and/or benefits will be. One farmer may need more of one compound for some future undisclosed project; another may need less. It is presumptuous and morally suspect to make assumptions about the extent to which those harms and benefits are really what is good or right for them. Moreover, it is flat wrong to assume that just because a particular action may confer overall benefits, that therefore that action is ethically permissible.

Consider: If I wake from knee surgery to a smiling surgeon who enthusiastically informs me that—“While you were asleep, we went ahead and added a pacemaker to your heart, just to be on the safe side”—I might have great reason to feel that I have been wronged, even if the pacemaker is 100 percent safe, and even if I am physically better off. Or consider this: If I return from vacation to learn that my neighbors—college students—have repaired the walls and furniture in my house, perhaps after they and 100 friends of theirs have had a raucous party during which my property was damaged, I may again feel wronged. Perhaps my neighbors have made me better off than I was before, maybe even by making improvements to my property. One would think I’d be grateful for such free labor. But there is a strong sense in which I would feel that they have heaped one wrong on top of another.

What makes an action right is not just whether that action makes the world better, but also whether those affected can agree to having their world made better by others. If my house was trashed due to this party, perhaps there are other remedies that I would like to explore that would be more appropriate for me, my family, and my property. If my neighbors take the initiative to repair my belongings without consulting me, they usurp my control over these possibilities, and in doing so, disrespect me and violate my right to do otherwise. They suddenly bear the responsibility for having changed something in my house that may have been reversible in another, more palatable way.

Just so with many geoengineering technologies: even though ocean fertilization might in fact make the world better, we need to ensure that the people who will be affected by these improvements could all agree to them. If, say, this giant algae bloom generates enough food to spark wonderfully delicious and nutritious new fisheries, that may be very good for the world, insofar as it may yield extraordinary benefits; but there are still strong rights- and respect-related ethical objections to aquaforming our oceans in this way.

What it would take for ocean fertilization to be justified, it seems to me, is that all affected parties, including non-human populations of animals and plants, could or would assent to allowing such a thing. This is a pretty tall order in the case of ocean fertilization, since the number of affected beings, human and non-, just about fills the set of all existing living things. We’re talking about engineering the climate, after all. We’re not just removing rain from one bucket and putting it in another.

It is my view that such a requirement is inordinately steep—so steep as to make such technical fixes ethically impermissible, particularly when there are other options available to us. Far better, for instance, would be to reduce our emissions, to find non-polluting energy sources, and/or to remove carbon and other greenhouse gasses through reversible means, like air capture or other secure sequestration methods. These projects have a much lower threshold of justification. The smaller the scale of a project, the fewer number of affected parties, and therefore, the fewer channels through which the project stands to trample the rights of those affected.

Perhaps you object. Maybe you think that we’ve already altered the climate such that many humans and non-humans will be affected by climate change against their wills. Most of those affected couldn’t or wouldn’t (or at least, didn’t) assent to the current changes that we’re experiencing now. Maybe because of this, we should be less concerned about what future generations can assent to and instead just focus on digging ourselves out of this hole. This is all compelling. But the way in which humans have altered the climate has been willy-nilly. It hasn’t been deliberate. Billions of people have acted independently, according to their own interests, to force the climate away from stability. Anthropogenic climate change is a colossal tragedy of the commons, a major failure of governance. We can’t point the finger at any one individual, or even at any very large group of individuals, and say that they’ve done something impermissible or disrespectful.

By contrast, geoengineering is very deliberate. For us to move forward with a technology that will orchestrate and steer our climate away from this tragedy, to a—fingers crossed—better outcome, is not simply for us to act on our planet, but to react—to react to the negative impacts of an uncoordinated and chaotic multitude. It is to accept the tragic transformation of the climate and to patch it over with a collective curative. It is to inject climate change with our collective culpability. Whatever happens after that point, after we have dramatically altered the flora, fauna, and chemical composition of our oceans, we will collectively be to blame.

If we move forward with projects to geoengineer the climate away from the mistakes of our predecessors, then the engineers of such a mammoth project will have to accept responsibility for the outcome. They (we) as a collective will be to blame. They (we) as a collective will have to own up to it. They (we) as a collective will really have to apologize to our children if we trash the earth for good. I think that’s unacceptable. We need to do something about climate change, yes; but we need to do something that only reverses what we’ve done, not that puts us on an uncharted climate path, forever lashing our collective responsibility to a policy that cannot possibly meet with the agreement, hypothetical or actual, of the billions that it will affect.

Benjamin Hale is assistant professor of philosophy and environmental studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, resident faculty at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, and affiliated faculty at the Center for Values and Social Policy.